The One Where They Eavesdrop
by i.heart.play-doh
Summary: On the way out to his date with Natalia, Eric stumbles upon a conversation between two of his colleagues. The more disturbing it became, the harder it was for them to stop listening. some EDeN & some CaRWash.


**Heyheyhey! So this is my second story, but first one-shot, as they call it. If I misnamed it, my bad. Please let me know.**

**I officially disclaim that though I do not own any of the characters of CSI: Miami or the franchise, I'm still legally allowed to daydream that I do. **

**Believe it or not, this was inspired by an exchange of rather dirty ideas between me & one of my friends in math class. I thought that class was hilarious, so I thought I'd share the laughs. I seriously hope nobody's done a story like this before. Enjoy!**

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_TGIF. Thank God it's Friday. _Eric Delko gathered his things and stuffed them in his duffel bag. He closed his locker shut, slung the bag over his shoulder, and walked eagerly out into the hallways.

He'd asked Horatio if he could take a couple days off. Besides, he had just worked a double-shift on a case by himself. And he'd accumulated two week's worth of nothing but sleep, sun, and – you guessed it – more sleep.

Naturally, his boss had complied, bidding him a good weekend before slipping on his sunglasses and strolling off to find someone else to give a heart attack when he arbitrarily appears.

Delko readjusted his bag as he was looking for Natalia. She'd agreed to have dinner with him tonight.

He found her walking down the same hallway, fluffing her hair while fixing her blouse. To him she looked wonderful.

They greeted each other with awkward smiles and strode in unison, making small talk to avoid hearing each other's furiously beating hearts.

Delko was about to take her hand in his when he heard someone talking in the Layout Room they were passing. That particular room was one of few that weren't glass-walled.

"_It'll be my first time."_

"_That's okay, mine too."_

Eric's eyes widened upon recognition of the voices conversing. Natalia covered her mouth.

"Are they who I think they are?" she whispered.

"Shh. Can't hear 'em."

"_So I freed up my schedule. I'm free every Friday night; is that okay? I could come over and we can practice for a while, you know? Before we do it with the others."_

"_Yeah, that sounds good. We need all the practice we can get, if we're gonna be joining the professionals." _

Delko looked at his date as if he'd won the lottery. "Do you realize how much blackmailing potential hearing this conversation has?"

She gave him a blank stare and smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. The two shared a smile then turned back to listen.

"_Hey, tell me something."_

"_Yeah?"_

"_What if – what if we make a mistake? I'm not familiar with doing something like this with other people."_

_The woman laughed. "I'm sure someone'll be kind enough to show us."_

"_I wish we could just do it one-on-one," the male answered._

"_It's the only way we'll learn, doing it with others. But I do agree with you. It would be more fun to do it alone." _

A throat cleared behind them. The Cuban closed his eyes and lowered his head. He already knew who it was without turning around.

"Looks like I caught you both eavesdropping on my CSIs." Horatio Caine stepped into view. "I thought you wanted to get out of here ASAP, Eric, yet you're still here."

Delko sighed. The only way out of this was to let him in on it. He turned to Natalia to get the green light. Except she was still staring at the lieutenant, sporting a deer-in-headlights look.

"H. You gotta understand. Natalia and me, we couldn't resist."

The redhead removed his glasses and raised an eyebrow. Eric motioned him to come over, closer to the door of the room with the two occupants.

Eric gestured to the entryway. "Listen."

"_I don't think I can do it. I don't think I'm ready."_

"_It'll be fine. We'll do it together, nice and slow." _

"_You think I'll do okay?"_

"_You'll do great, I know it."_

Horatio backed up, hearing more than enough. The other two stood up from their crouching positions. They held their breaths.

He didn't talk for a while, faintly hearing the rather interesting exchange between two people from his team. He found the words, and spoke up.

"I see." The lieutenant fidgeted with his glasses. "It's about time for the both of them, don't you think?"

Eric and Natalia breathed with relief, glad that they were off the hook. Horatio even revealed a grin.

"Don't get caught or they'll kill you before you spread the news." He paused, putting his hands on his hips, now free of the sunglasses that were sitting on his nose. "They'll know how to hide the body and conceal evidence." He marched off in a calm and collective manner.

"They are after all," he continued, "my CSIs."

Natalia waved at him, looked at Eric, and smiled mischeviously.

"Come on. Let's keep listening. We already missed so much."

They squatted once more and craned their necks close to the door.

All the other times they snooped on their friends the man always spoke first. This time the woman did.

"_Thanks again for doing this with me. I didn't think anybody would actually agree."_

"_Really? Oh, I'm sure a lot of other people would kill for the chance to do it, especially with you. It's no problem, really, but I do have one question."_

"_Spill."_

"_Why didn't you ask Delko? Or H? Or did you already ask and they declined?"_

Natalia diverted his attention. "You told her you didn't want to do it? Way to go, I knew you were that kind of guy."

"Natalia, with all due respect, shush. If you don't, I'll… I'll make you pay for dinner."

That shut her up, but not without murmuring a witty comeback. "What I said before, about you being that kind of guy, I take it back. You're just like the rest of them."

"Shh."

"_As a matter of fact, no. You're the first. And I'm glad I asked you first, because now that I think about it, you're the only one I wanna do it with." _

_They shared a smile the eavesdroppers failed to see._

"_I'm excited for tonight, aren't you?" she asked him._

"_Yeah. I just hope I'll be ready by then."_

"_Oh, you will, you will. As for me, I hope that by the end there'll be a bun in the oven for the both of us."_

"_I think that's the goal, isn't it?"_

_A bun in the oven, _Eric thought. _Now there's the understatement of the year._

Natalia nudged him. Her face was a mix of surprise and disbelief. He merely shrugged, feeling the exact same emotions running through his veins.

"_Now, before I come by your place later tonight, tell me. You want icing on yours?"_

"_Nah. I'm more of a whipped cream kind of girl. You like icing on yours?"_

"_Come to think of it, no. I like sprinkles, though."_

"_Ooh, sprinkles. I've got lots of that at home. Chocolate or rainbow?"_

"_Whatever you've got, I'll take it. I'll use whichever you think tastes better with it." _

"_Hm. Hard to say. I'd have to try it with the goods." _

"_You can decide when you try it later." _

"_I sure will."_

Delko didn't know how much more he could take. He simply couldn't believe how _dirty_ his co-workers could be, especially at work!

He was partly delighted that he and Natalia got there before anyone else did. Because of their odd positions in front of Layout no one dared approach them. That meant no one would overhear. But it did get them talking.

The other part wanted to reintroduce his lunch to him. Yes, it took them long enough to find out they were practically meant for each other – everyone's been betting on it – but still. It'd be hard not to picture them doing it the next time he'd see them together.

Once again his date snapped him out of his reverie by poking him in the gut.

"I think they're –"

The man spoke up, interrupting Natalia.

"_Let's go now. The more time we have, the better. I want to get this right before anybody finds out what we've been up to."_

"_I'm almost done with dusting this. Then we can leave, start early, and end late. Do you think they'll notice anything if we keep doing it every Friday?"_

"_Probably. It is their job to notice, after all. We just gotta be careful. And extra sneaky."_

"_Ooh, sneaky. That'll get me all pumped up. And hey. If we're lucky we'll be able to show everyone around Christmas."_

"_Yeah. I think they'd really enjoy seeing us do it at the annual Christmas party." _

Neither Eric nor his companion noticed that the voices got louder. They were too preoccupied with being terrified of them performing it in front of them in a couple of months. That, and they were skeptic about them being so eager about it.

"_It'll be so much fun. I can't wait. Learning how to do it is not something I would have ever thought of doing, especially with you."_

"_I'm excited to do it with someone I know so well. It's not gonna be awkward, since we work together great. And it's a lifelong lesson, so it's totally worth it." _

The voices were at their loudest now, right in front of the door the two were facing on the other side. Yet they were still unaware of the proximity, speechless and apparently catatonic.

"Maybe once we do it perfectly we can ask Eric and Natalia if they want to learn. It looks like they're real interested, seeing as how they've been listening in on us since the beginning of our talk."

The culprits looked up to see the door open. Their friends were standing before them, arms crossing their chests. They wore their eyebrows relatively high and smirks on their amused faces. Yeah, they're totally soulmates.

"Yeah, maybe. I bet Delko'd blow up the kitchen the first time he tries to do some _baking_."

Delko straightened, sizing up to the man who had just insulted him. "You know what, Wolfe? I'll bake whatever you want, any day. And it'll still be better than what you concoct." His eyes enlarged with realization.

"Wait a minute. You guys were talking about baking?!"

Natalia was frozen again, merely standing there as if she was just a spectator.

Calleigh's expression turned into one of confusion.

"Of course we were talking about baking. What else could we be talking about?" She turned to Ryan, who shook his shoulders, then turned back to face Delko.

The other woman found her vocal chords. "Hey Eric, guess what? We're fifteen minutes late for our reservation at that fancy restaurant, and all that snooping around was for nothing. Do you know how long I've been wanting to go there? I guess not, because we're still here! Good luck finding us a table anywhere on a late Friday night."

She apologized to Ryan and Calleigh for listening to their discussion of taking baking classes without their permission. They humbly accepted her act of contrition and told her it was no big deal. 'It wasn't like she initiated the eavesdropping,' Ryan claimed, glaring at Delko.

Eventually Eric apologized too, because Natalia threatened to cancel their date as well as any other dates in the future. They finally left the lab, most likely headed to a 24-hour fast food joint because Eric had ruined their reservations.

Once they were out of sight Ryan walked in front of Calleigh so they were facing each other.

"You think they bought that?" she asked, a smile crawling on her face.

"Absolutely. With the way we put it so vaguely, they can't not believe it. Those were some good baking references, by the way. Bun in the oven? Priceless." He responded, praising her quick wit by lifting both his hands up, palm facing the ceiling.

"You too. Icing? Sprinkles? Genius."

They laughed, already reminiscing about their intentionally elusive dialogue.

"Let's get out of here. Do some baking." Ryan moved his eyebrows up and down, inviting her to rethink his baking comment.

Calleigh intertwined her fingers around his hand, squeezing it tenderly.

"Want some sprinkles with that?"

He leaned over and gave her a sweet kiss. She loved it when he left her wanting more. Ryan put his forehead on hers, their noses barely touching.

"Couldn't have put it better myself."

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**So what'd you think? Did it make your day or break it? & I'm thinking of making this a sort of one-shot series. Should I? I could definitely title the other stories like Friends does**.

**Leave comments, criticisms, & suggestions for possible next storylines, pretty please. With _sprinkles_ on top. :D  
**


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